Facebook "want" button coming soon, says developer

Facebook already allows members to express themselves in a number of different ways, from posting basic status updates and liking things to sharing what songs you are listening to and even sharing your organ donor status. But according to developer Tom Waddington, the social networking company has added a new “want” tag to their Javascript software development kit.

Inside Facebook points out that the button is not publicly listed on the company’s Facebook developer site alongside other plugins. Waddington says that the button will be a part of Facebook’s Open Graph, only showing up on items that are marked as a product. For example, you could “want” a new car but you wouldn’t be able to “want” your favorite band or movie star.

A similar function already exists as a third party app but users have to authorize them to create stories on their Timeline and News Feed. Many tech savvy users shy away from installing any third party apps on the social site out of fear that an app could end up compromising their account. Getting rid of the third party app and implementing the feature directly into Facebook will no doubt result in greater participation.

Adding the feature will allow Facebook to collect even more data about a user’s interests, something that could be used for advertising purposes. The move would also assist e-commerce fan sites as those companies would no longer have to create their own apps to accomplish the same goal.

No word yet on when exactly this new feature is scheduled to roll out.